Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has suffered a loss in his approval rating, which has dropped below 40 percent, in line with his party’s declining public support in the latest elections held on March 31, according to the results of a recent survey.
The Ankara-based MetroPoll has announced the results of its monthly “The Pulse of Turkey” survey for April detailing the approval ratings of Turkish politicians.
The survey was conducted on 2,235 people across 28 provinces between April 17 and 24.
The survey’s results show that Erdoğan, whose ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been ruling Turkey as a single-party government since 2002, ranks third among the seven politicians presented to the respondents, enjoying support of only 38.3 percent.
A total of 53.4 percent of respondents said they disapprove of the performance of Erdoğan, who was elected for another term in the May 2023 presidential election.
Many link Erdoğan’s declining popularity with the deteriorating economic situation in the country, where inflation stands at around 70 percent, making it difficult for Turks to even meet their basic needs.
At the top of the list is Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş, from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), who was reelected by a wide margin against the AKP mayoral candidate in the March 31 local elections.
Yavaş has an approval rating of 65.8 percent, the highest he has enjoyed so far. He is followed by İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, again from the CHP, and elected for his second term on March 31.
İmamoğlu’s approval rating stands at 52.8 percent.
The two mayors are seen as the strongest rivals of President Erdoğan, whose party sustained its worst defeat since its establishment on March 31.
The results of the March 31 elections produced surprising results for the AKP, while the CHP has emerged as the country’s leading party for the first time in decades, receiving 37.7 percent of the vote. The AKP’s nationwide support, however, stood at 35.4 percent.
The approval rating of CHP leader Özgür Özel stands at 36.2 percent. He is followed by the Islamist New Welfare Party’s (YRP) Fatih Erbakan, who has 33 percent support.
Erbakan allied with the AKP in the May general election but later parted ways with it and fielded its own candidates for the March 31 local elections. The party emerged as the third most successful party in the local elections, taking over some municipalities from the AKP.
Far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli, an ally of Erdoğan, has an approval rating of 25 percent, while former nationalist İYİ (Good) Party leader Meral Akşener is at the bottom of the list with an approval rating of only 9 percent.
Akşener stepped down from the leadership of her party after it sustained a defeat in the local elections, winning only a few municipalities and getting nationwide support of 3.7 percent.
